Who Will Care for Your Dogs When You Cannot?

By Jodie Keener, JBKBorderCollies.com

When you bring a dog into your life, you accept responsibility for its care. That includes making arrangements for the days when you cannot provide it yourself.

Most of us know who feeds the dogs when we take a trip. Far fewer have made a clear plan for an unexpected hospitalization, a serious accident, or our death.

Your dog will still need supper that evening. A dog receiving medication will still need the correct dose. Someone will need to get inside, know what to do, and follow through.

That applies whether you own one companion dog or have a kennel full of dogs. It applies at every age.

Start with a conversation

Do you have someone who has actually agreed to care for your dog if something happens to you?

Assuming your spouse, children, sister, or closest friend will handle it leaves a great deal unanswered. Loving you does not automatically mean someone has the space, ability, finances, or experience to take your dog.

Ask them. Explain what the responsibility involves. Give them an opportunity to be honest.

The person who can come over tonight to feed and let your dog out may not be the person who can provide a permanent home. Your plan should account for both immediate care and what happens if you cannot return.

Choose a backup, too. Your first person may be traveling, ill, or unavailable when needed.

Make the information usable.

Write down what someone needs to know. In an emergency, people should not have to search through your phone, guess at medication, or try to remember something you mentioned years ago.

Include:

Each dog’s name, photograph, age, and identification or microchip information.
Your veterinarian’s contact information and where health records are kept.
Food, amounts, feeding times, medications, and special care instructions.
How to enter your home or kennel and where to find leads, carriers, and supplies.
Behavior that affects safe handling, including escape habits, fears, and which dogs must be kept apart.
The people to contact for immediate care and longer-term arrangements.
Your wishes for each dog’s future, including any agreement requiring contact with the dog’s breeder.

Keep a copy where your designated person can find it. Arrange secure access to necessary digital records, and keep essential care instructions available on paper as well.

A beautifully organized file does little good if nobody knows it exists.

Plan for the dog you actually have A young, active dog may need a very different home from an elderly dog who depends on a familiar routine. A dog with medical needs requires someone willing and able to manage them. A large, powerful dog needs an appropriate home and a capable handler.

Be honest about those needs.

If two dogs depend heavily on one another and you want them kept together, put that in writing and discuss whether it is practical. If a dog cannot safely live with cats, children, or another dog, that information must be clear.

Give the person helping you enough information to make a suitable decision, without placing your dog or another household in a difficult situation.

Money belongs in the conversation, too. Food, veterinary care, boarding, medication, and transportation can become immediate expenses. Consider how those costs will be covered rather than leaving someone to discover the financial responsibility after an emergency.

For permanent arrangements, have the appropriate documents prepared for your circumstances. Care instructions and arrangements for ownership need to work together.

Breeders have additional responsibilities

Everything above applies to breeders, with more information to account for.

A breeding household may include puppies, adolescents, mature dogs, retired dogs, pregnant females, and mothers nursing litters. Some dogs may be co-owned or belong to someone else. There may also be breeding agreements, registration records, and stored semen to address.

Those details should be documented individually.

Who is responsible for a nursing litter? Who has the experience to manage the intact dogs safely? Who must be contacted about a co-owned dog? Which dogs have planned homes, and which will need careful placement?

Your designated people need to understand the actual workload. Taking responsibility for several dogs may require more than one person, more than one property, and a coordinated plan.

At JBK, We already have my plan in place. The people named in my will are aware of who will take my dogs and who will be responsible for them. That includes dogs of every age, from puppies to the oldest dogs here.

Both of my veterinarians are listed in my living will, and they also have my instructions on file. The people responsible for my dogs have that veterinary support and know what I want done.

These arrangements matter to me because every one of those dogs depends on the care I provide. Their needs continue whether I am here to meet them or someone else must step in.

Keep the plan current

Review your arrangements when a dog joins your household, a dog develops new needs, or the circumstances of a designated caregiver change.

Someone who could take a dog five years ago may no longer be able to. Phone numbers change. People move. Health changes. Your written instructions should reflect the household you have today.

You do not need to finish every detail in one sitting. Begin by choosing your people, having the conversation, and writing down the information needed to care for your dogs immediately. Then complete the arrangements for their future.

We put considerable thought into feeding our dogs, protecting their health, and giving them a good life.

Making sure that care continues when we cannot provide it deserves the same attention.